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About Laura Brown

Art is something you put something of yourself into. It might be your heart, your spirit, your soul or your imagination. I don’t think art can be created without sharing or feeling some kind of passion or sense of adventure. Or, at the very least, a pride in what you have created.

Art is something you make with your hands. You can visualize it in your mind. You learn how to do it, in your mind. But, until your hands actually get in there and start messing with everything, you really don’t know how the finished product will be. That’s why necessity is the Mother of invention. It’s when the plans you made in your brain don’t turn out that well once your hands take over the physical work of creating. Sometimes you have to create new plans to get what you visualized in the first place. Our hands are clumsy compared to our minds.

I think, only with writing, do we have a chance to step in and fix things the way our brain wants them. Fingers are necessary to type but they can be corrected at the keyboard. Less is left up to chance as the keyboard characters all come out the way the computer or typewriter does them. Though the hands can come up with typos, the brain can fix them quite precisely. Not so much with sewing, drawing or other art. Thread, paint, ink, wood and other materials/ mediums add a randomness. In time your hands get craftier, better at making art. It does take time, patience and practice to teach your brain and train your hands.

Anything you create should require at least some effort, some time, patience and practice to get the hands, the eyes and the brain co-ordinated. Otherwise, I don’t really think it is art. Anyone can fling paint at a wall and say that’s art. Is it? Where was the effort, the time , patience and practice to get it right? What meaning does that have, other than the fact that someone else will have to come along and finish painting the wall properly. Real art is created when the wall is painted and done well. Knowing how to paint and make it turn out well, that’s an art. Even if it is just a wall painted all one colour, it was done with patience and whatever time was needed to practice the skill of house/ interior painting.

I see so many different kinds of art and I really like finding new things. When I can, I try them myself. Sometimes my brain gets grand ideas which my hands can’t produce. So, I try again.

If you were interviewing me and just finished listening to that long monologue and hadn’t fallen asleep yet you might now ask what kind of art I create. So here are some examples:

My main site is ThatGrrl.ca. Most of my other projects link from there. If you Twitter I am @thatgrrl. If you StumbleUpon I am thatgrrl and if you Tumblr I am also thatgrrl. Nice how that all works out.

PS- If Deanna asks you to join her cult just say you already joined at the office.

I also write for Inherited Values, another U.P to the D.L site. You can keep up with projects by U.P. to the D.L. at Twitter: @UPtotheDL.